pensioners Diane Marshall and Howard Feddy tied the knot on Valentine’s Day – two years after they fell in love after a chance reunion.

The sweethearts, who had grown up on neighbouring streets in Potternewton, Leeds, wed at the Broderick Ceremony Suite at Leeds Town Hall.

It was an accidental meeting on February 15 2009 that brought the former Cowper Primary School pupils back together.

Howard, 74, had travelled back to Leeds from Las Vegas in America where he had been living for the last 40 years, for the school’s latest reunion party. Diane, 67, had given the event a miss but fate still brought the pair together when they saw each other out at the Leeds Jewish Day Centre on the Queenshill estate at Moortown the following day.

Diane recalled: “I went for a cup of coffee.

“I was a bit huffy because they charged me an extra 20p for a tea bag.

“All of a sudden Howard walked in and somebody asked him if he knew me because he’d been at this reunion.

“I didn’t go because I didn’t want to see all the old men and women - I wouldn’t have recognised them anyway.

“But we remembered each other from 40 years ago.

“He started talking and it was as if noone else was in the room.

“I know it sounds stupid coming from a woman of 67, but he took my email address and telephone number and he called me as soon has he was back in Vegas.”

She added: “Mum used to say when I was eight or nine, ‘Diane, when you go to school don’t talk to any of the fat Feddys [brothers] with red hair.

“I wonder what she would think now?”

Howard added: “If someone had said to me that I was going to move back to Leeds, I never would have believed it.

“I had been living in America since I was 38. I have two sons there, a daughter in law and grandchild.

“But I did and I did it to be with Diane.”

Diane and Howard celebrated their wedding with family and friends at the Leeds Gala Casino.